Mafia Afternoons
by lamentable
Summary: A continuation-fic to "Mafia Days"; An explanation for Matt's presence and some things you all might find familiar.


"You promised that you would explain," Mello starts their next conversation, the one after the revealing one in the kitchen, dragging Natla to his bedroom. The men in the common room - Neylon and Skyer at this point - don't hear his words but do watch with interest as the dark haired "woman" is dragged away. It's only been two days since Skyer walked in on them in the kitchen, and the man's interest peaks at this point.

"I'm going to see what the big deal about her is," he tells Neylon, and then slinks forward to crouch outside of Mello's door.

"Matt," he hears, "what happened after I left Wammy's?" His first thought is: 'did Mello just call Natla by a boy's name?', but it's overriden with the curiosity of 'what is Wammy's?'. He stays silent and still, breathing shallowly as the other occupant begins to speak. Her voice is oddly... deep, through the door, he thinks.

"I... I didn't even know you left, at first, you know that. I figured it out, though, when you didn't return by light's-out. Near confirmed it for me the next day. I was a wreck, you know," Natla says, and Skyer gasps. He prays that Mello didn't hear it, but scrambles to his feet and runs off anyway; he knows that if Mello _did_ check the doorway and found him there, he'd be eating lead. The blond was rather termperamental.

Back at Mello's room, for Skyer has just slid into the kitchen, Mello has torn open the door just as he was expected to. It would figure, that one of his stupid mafia cohorts would attempt to spy or listen in onto the two of them. Though, to be honest, it probably did look suspicious - the acting leader of the mafia base, dragging their only female member into his bedroom? It'd been a while since they'd entertained prostitutes anyway, and those sleazy men were probably losing their minds from sexual frustration. Was it really so common for men to want to sex up everything? Ridiculous.

Glaring at the floor and the doorway suspiciously, Mello returns the door to its shut position and then moves away to sit on his bed. Matt - or Natla, whatever - has already sprawled out like the man he truly is, and he forces him to scoot over with a friendly glare.

"Five bucks says it was Skyer at that door. I think he'd fuck me even if he knew I was a guy," Matt says, and Mello laughs. It's not a menacing laugh either; it's almost carefree, even though he retains his seriousness.

"Prolly would. Continue where you left off, though, or we're going to have to entertain ridiculous rumors once we leave here."

"Well, after talking to Near, I mean, I was really screwed up. You'd leave without even telling me goodbye? I was surprised that L meant more to you than even I did, but I tried to just focus on my work and operate as normal. I had to wait to leave the orphanage... I wasn't fifteen yet, you know."

"I know," Mello murmurs, and follows up with "and Roger wouldn't let you leave?"

"Nah, he refused. Something like "I'm not letting you turn into another Mello! You're going to have to stay here until February," or something." Matt frowns. "I waited; I didn't do any of my work or my homework and I never left my room. Roger tried dragging me to class one day in the last weeks of January, but I wouldn't stand it. I literally barricaded the doorway..."

"Did you leave in February?"

"Yeah - the moment I turned fifteen I was out of there. I'd been retaining funds from legal enough computer jobs - nothing classy - and I left as soon as possible. That cabbie will probably never look at red headed orphans the same way again."

"Where did you go?" Mello is curious, and more than that, he is interested in how Matt had known to find him.

"You're not going to like it," Matt says, after a moment. His eyes are downcast and his lips are a tilted line.

"You worked with Near, didn't you," Mello says - a statement and not a question. His tone is low and his brow was creased in anger. It's all he could do not to raise his voice. "How could you work with Near? That's everything I'm _against_, Matt!"

"Mello, you didn't even say goodbye when you left, what was I supposed to do?"

Mello gets to his feet and stalks around the room, picking up his gun only to smash it back onto the table he'd grabbed it from.

"I can't believe you!"

"You're kidding, right?" It was a rhetorical question - Mello doesn't make jokes - but Matt says it anyway. "And besides, I didn't work with Near for very long. He figured out where I was staying and called me one day. I'd been working less legal jobs this time - hacking and deletion, but it paid well. That was two years ago. And in my spare time I hunted for you. I didn't know where to look, Mello. I figured you wouldn't stay on the legal side of boundaries; never doing anything Near would do, but I never thought to check the Mafia."

Returning to the bed, Mello kicks the frame. The wrought iron bounces off the steel toe of his boot and he seems to want to stomp off but instead sinks back down into the mattress.

"Near had figured out where you were, somehow, he never told me. After he told me, I concocted a plan to get in. I knew that you were a pretty important person here, and that if you knew that it was _me_ attempting to get in, here, you'd never let them let me in. I honestly figured you'd be too considerate of my well-being to let me risk my life in the Mafia."

"Of course, that would never stop you," Mello says blandly, and reaches around on the table beside his gun for a bar of chocolate. By no means whatsoever was he going to sit through this without chocolate. If he didn't have something to soothe his

"Naturally. You're my best friend; practically my brother, Mello. I really didn't want to suffer through the rest of life without knowing if you were okay or anything."

"And... You figured that pretending to be a woman would be a decent enough way to get into the Mafia? I know you were third, but I didn't realize the IQ gap was that big." Mello's words are biting but kind enough; merely joking.

"Near didn't immediately shoot down the plan when I ran it by him, and I figured that you wouldn't be expecting me to attempt to get into the Mafia anyway, so you wouldn't look at it that closely if you even looked at all. They made me kill one of their own to get in... he wasn't playing up his portion of the income into the "family", as it were... No one said anything about the fact that I'm flatchested, and I wore a high-necked shirt that day to make sure no one saw my Adam's Apple."

"But... your hair. You dyed it!"

"Yeah. How many hacker red-heads do you know? I know it'd raise suspicion; just because I'm not one or two doesn't mean I can't think rationally."

"Yet somehow your rational thoughts didn't extend to figure that joining the Mafia, if only to be around me, was a bad thing?"

"Mmhm." Matt turns over at this point, burying his face in a pillow and seemingly attempting to smother himself. Rising and ignoring Matt's behavior, Mello pulls open the closet at the right side of the room. He kneels in the floor and digs through something for long moments. "What are you doing?" Matt asks, pulling his face from the normally unused pillow and shaking black hair out of his eyes.

"What does it look like? Just shut up and stay there," Mello demands around his chocolate bar - using both hands to dig through whatever he was messing with. Matt's eyes flick to a clock sitting at the end of the bed where Mello had been: 3:28. Almost ten minutes since they'd abandoned the other members in favor of talking.

"Mello..." his voice is quiet but he is getting pretty frustrated. Sitting still doing absolutely _nothing_ had never really been his thing.

"Hah, here the fuckin' thing is. I'm sure I wouldn't be the only pissed one if I'd misplaced it," Mello stays, getting to his feet from the kneeling position he had adopted.

"What?" Matt sits up to look, finally, and comes forehead to plastic with a flying projectile he'd once called his Nintendo DS Lite. It'd disappeared from his room the night Mello had left, and he'd searched for the silver contraption for hours while he tried to distract himself from the fact that Mello had been nowhere to be found. He'd almost beaten The World Ends with You that night, too, but he'd gone to the bathroom and left it paused on his bed; when he'd come back it'd been gone.

"Well, at least your big head caught it," Mello says, flicking the game on and sticking it in Matt's lap as the other boy rubbs his forehead.

"Jesus Mels-"

"Hey Mello!" There is a rapping at the door; it's Neylon.

"What!" Mello barks at the door, getting to his feet and picking up his gun. Matt shifts into a more feminine position and grabs his game as the door opens.

"Our men just got back, the Boss is with them too; he wants you to meet with him and then go handle the hostage in the basement. It's the leader of the Japane-"

"I know who it is! I'll be out there in a minute; get out." Mello gestures with his gun and slams the door. Matt looks at him in surprise.

"You guys kidnapped the leader of the _Japanese Police Force_?! Seriously?" Facepalming with a sigh, Mello turns back to his friend.

"Look, it's necessary. Just stay up here and don't get involved with what goes on down there. I don't want to get you caught up in this. You're my responsibility again," the blond reasons, and he's out the door before Matt can reply.

"Your responsibility my ass," he murmurs to himself. "You can't even worry about your own self enough to deal with me." Turning off the DS, he gets up as well. There's a cellphone in his other pocket that's vibrating in a bothersome way, and considering the only person with the number is Near... He knows what will be said before he even answers, though he does anyway.

"_Mello has kidnapped NPA director Kenichi Takimura._" Of course, that's Near. Straightforward and to the point.

"Yes," is his reply, also short and to the point. "The man apparently just arrived here; Mello is meeting with the "Boss" and ... I don't know."

"_Matt is very rarely speechless_," Near says in that condescending way, and Matt creases his brow in a Mello-esque way.

"Near is very rarely rude to me," is his reply, and then he continues. "What's your point in calling?"

"_Forgive me. It seems that 'L' is enlisting my assistance in order to retrieve the hostage._"

"I see."

"_I intended to inform you and allow you to make the appropriate actions to save yourself and Mello in the event that the base you are staying at is invaded._"

"Thank you, Near. I'm sure you'll be the first to know if something happens to either of us," Matt says in parting, and then closes the phone.

Soon it will be time to really act out his purpose here; he'll have pull a lot of stops to keep Mello from killing himself in what would probably be yet another dangerous endeavor... That's just how Mello is. 110 percent, always, and always in the most reckless of ways.

* * *

AN: I'm not sure this one will be as well-accepted as the last one, but there's little I can do. I tried to keep it as close to the timeline of the original Death Note as possible, while still making it a complementary piece to the first chapter. Believe me, it was very difficult.

Additionally, in terms of the title, I think I'm seeking a "Mafia Days is the beginning, Mafia Afternoons is the middle, and Mafia Nights is the end" of the Mafia section in Matt and Mello's life. It's about as creative as I'm going to get, I'm afraid.

I hope you enjoy it and please review. It'd make my day. (Even if it's just to tell me there's a blatant tense issue, or something, I don't care. I love reviewers in all shapes and sizes. ^^ )

lamentable.


End file.
